


Rooms That Don't Have People in Them Are Haunted

by Vitreous_Humor



Category: Gintama
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 18:23:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vitreous_Humor/pseuds/Vitreous_Humor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Amanto War, before the series began, there was a lot of time to kill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rooms That Don't Have People in Them Are Haunted

Otose had some vague idea about putting the boy in the apartment above the shop. It had been empty ever since the fan-maker's family moved out, and there were worse things than having someone live up there and look after things.

“I'll have a key made for you tomorrow as long as you don't burn the place down or stink it up with loose women.”

He looked at her for a long moment, and she thought of a foreigner trying to understand words he only knew from a textbook. Then he nodded and stepped inside, looking around the room, and she slid the door shut behind her as she went downstairs.

There was the after-dinner rush in the snack shop, and she didn't have time to think about her new tenant for a few hours. There were snack bowls to refill and liquor to serve, and it was almost midnight before the last cheerful drunk cleared out.

It occurred to her that he might want some crackers and and some of the leftover cod skewers. He had the look of a sturdy boy who had grown suddenly thin, and he had eaten her husband's buns with all the grace of a starving dog.

She didn't bother knocking on the door, that would only come when she couldn't let herself in.

The boy was sitting in the corner furthest from the door, and he blinked when she switched on the light. He had remembered to take off his sandals at the door, but otherwise he looked exactly as cold and wary as he had when she met him in the graveyard.

“Only idiots sit in the dark when there's light available,” she said mildly, and he looked slightly abashed.

Otose held out the plate of crackers and cod. He older than the brats she used to feed at the dango joint, and when he stood to take the plate from her, she realized how tall he was.

Runaway, she figured, and and on the run for a while, though from what, she couldn't say. He didn't look like a failed apprentice and with that strange white hair and those creepy red eyes, he probably wasn't running away from a brothel.

He ate the food as quickly as he had eaten the buns, and then he held the plate uncertainly.

“Thank you,” he said hesitantly. “Should... can I wash this?”

Someone had taught him that much at least, and she led him down the stairs where he could wash his single plate in the sink. He kept one eye on the door, and when a scooter backfired in the street, he went straight for the knife she kept to cut limes.

Otose raised her eyebrow and gestured at the knife with her cigarette.

“Not going to do a lot of damage with that,” she commented. “Scooters are hard to kill.”

He stared at her as if weighing the truth of her words, but at least he returned the knife to the counter.

There was a quilt that was cluttering up her closet, so she sent it up with him. No reason to have more junk around the house when there was perfectly good storage upstairs, after all.

 

The next day, he was so quiet that she was beginning to wonder if he was up there at all. The fan-maker's baby daughter made more noise than he did, and at noon, she went up the stairs with some dried squid.

He had folded up the quilt and placed it neatly in the corner, and he sat next to it. He looked less startled when she rolled open the door this time, and he got up when she offered him the food. The dried squid was eaten just as quickly as the cod had been the night before, and when he came down to wash the plate, she stopped him before he went back upstairs.

“I need a few things from the store before opening tonight. Come make yourself useful.”

He fell into step as if it came naturally to him, and if he was still as quiet as a post, she wasn't a great talker either. It felt nice to have a man walking by her side again. Even if he didn't stop to pet every dog the way that Tetsugorou did or to accept salutes from every minor street thug the way that Jirachou had, it was still nice.

Otose walked for a few paces before she realized that he had stopped. When she turned around and looked back he was staring into a glass storefront, his eyes wide. She glanced in at what he was staring at and slapped his shoulder, bringing him back to line.

“That's that new thing, television. Stupid people talking from a little box. Come on.”

He glanced over his shoulder again before falling into step. She could tell that he would be a fool for every new fad that came through Kabukichou, but at least it was something different from that wary, empty expression he wore most of the time.

 

The next day, she made a decision when she brought him a bowl of leftover rice and squid.

“You can come downstairs for food from now on,” she said. “I don't like going up those stairs with my knees like this.”

Other young men would have been abashed at making a granny hobble up those stairs, but he only looked at her thoughtfully before nodding.

After that, he came downstairs for his food. Within a few weeks, he started to fill out and to lose that gaunt look that he had had and that was when she started giving him smaller portions.

She could tell that he noticed right away, but he kept his mouth shut for another few days. That lasted until she doled herself out a generous bowl of fresh rice and egg and sat down to eat at the bar with him. He looked at her rice and then he looked back at his plate, which contained some withered radish greens and half a raw onion.

“Hey granny, give me some of what you're eating,” he said finally.

“Hmph, and what have you done to earn it?” she asked, taking another bite. “Did you come down and serve the customers, or did you you take the trash out back?”

“Hey, I protected your upstairs room from ninjas,” he protested. “No ninjas got in there while I was watching out, so let me eat!”

She ignored him, eating her dinner and watching him pick at his greens and his onion. It pleased her that he was healthy enough to be picky.

He was quiet until she placed her leftovers in an old bowl and went to put it out for the neighborhood cats.

“If you're not going to eat that, give it to me,” he whined. “The Buddha says waste not, want not.”

“He also says that lazy bums who never lift a finger have to go fight with cats for their food.”

Gods only knew where the white-haired boy had come from, but wherever it was, he had never dealt with city cats before. He got a bite of egg, a bit of rice, a shredded sleeve and a bitten hand, and they got the rest.

“Stupid greedy cats, and stupid greedy hag,” he muttered, coming back indoors. “Not a bit of Buddhist spirit among any of you.”

“I'd rather have fresh egg and rice than Buddhist spirit,” she said. “And there's plenty of food for people who work.”

Before he could get that lost and confused look again, before he retreated back into thinking about whatever work he did before, if any, she continued briskly.

“Old man Chiba needs people to unload fish down at the docks. Don't ask him about his eye and don't tease his daughter, and you can bring home some cash.”

He looked at her blankly and she broke it down further for him.

“Go to the docks tomorrow at dawn,” she said. “He'll pay you.”

He nodded, relieved, and she resisted the urge to tell him that he'd do fine.

 

He came back with a fistful of money and Otose thought that if he was carrying cash that carelessly through Kabukichou without getting mugged that there might be something to him after all.

“Gimme some food now,” he said, holding out the cash, and she looked it over carefully before selecting a few bills.

“This is for the place upstairs,” she said. “If you're bringing in money, you're paying rent.”

She rifled through the bills further, and pulled out a wad that was only a little smaller.

“And this is for some rice and eggs.”

He was no idiot, and at the very least he could do math.

“Hey, that's as almost as much for rice and eggs as it is to stay in the apartment!”

“Well, inflation hits small business owners harder than large ones, and what do you expect when you eat at a bar? We don't do food here, we just make dumb drunks think they're full!”

He ate the rice and eggs she gave him sulkily, muttering about vultures dressed in kimonos and wearing too much makeup, and she ignored him. It was sort of nice to have someone mumbling dire threats under their breath again.

“Little Fusa from the corner store was just saying that the rice cookers were going to be on sale next week,” she said conversationally. “I wouldn't buy anything full price from that ripoff joint, but maybe on sale it wouldn't be too bad.”

He put up with her snatching the money from his hand for another few days, and then he bought a rice cooker. She thought it looked stupid and trashy sitting on the floor of the apartment, so she gave him a small table to put it on.

“Mrs. Saito was just going to throw it out,” she said. “I hate it when people do that to perfectly good furniture.”

The smile on his face was fleeting but it was there and the next day, when she asked him if he wanted to eat at the bar again, he made a face and said that he was smarter than dumb drunks who only thought they were making themselves full.

 

The kimono was a surprise. He had been wearing that dusty gray thing day in and day out, and then one day, he showed up in a white and blue robe that looked like it belonged on a nightclub shill.

“Hey granny,” he said, swaggering up with a gait he had probably learned from the local thugs. “Check me out.”

“I am,” she said acidly, “You look like you should be telling me how hot the girls are and that I should come in for a drink.”

“Hey, this was expensive,” he protested. “The man said that all the good-looking guys in Edo are dressed like this.”

“Ha, and you think the good-looking guys in Edo hang around here? Get real, you're dressed like a host from when I was a kid.”

“Oh yeah, is this what they wore back in the Kamakura era?”

There was no way that a wet-behind-the-ears punk was going to make a joke about her age, and before it was over, she had taken what was left of his money and tossed him into the dusty street in front of the snack shop.

“Use your money for something useful! There's plenty of things a worthwhile human could be buying for his apartment.”

He grinned at that and for a moment, he looked so much like Tetsugorou that she had to blink.

“Don't worry about it, granny,” he said confidently. “I got so much cash that I'm gonna buy a television next.”

 

Of course he lost his job the next day.

“I didn't even ask about old man Chiba's eye,” he complained, nursing the bruise on his cheek. “I just asked his daughter about it.”

She set an ice pack down on the table between them. He reminded her far too much of Tetsugorou in some ways, and Jirochou too, and now she was remembering how irritating that could be.

“Was it the daughter or old man Chiba who gave you that shiner?” she asked.

“The daughter. She jumps real high for an 8-year-old brat.”

They sat in silence for a while as she cut up the limes for the night's opening.

“Guess I'll get another job tomorrow,”he said.

She was just going to commend him for turning into a good responsible young man when he continued.

“I wanna have some cash for this weekend, cause there's this pachinko place down the street that looks like it gives easy payouts.”

 

He wasn't Tetsugorou or Jirachou. He was dumb as a brick until something lit a fire under his ass, and the rest of the time, he was as worthless an adult as any other bum hanging around Kabukichou.

He got jobs and lost them, and he had more than his fair share of scrapes with some of the other toughs hanging around. She was mildly surprised when people started talking her up as one of the four heads of Kabukichou again, and she supposed that as enforcers went, he wasn't a bad one. At the very least, it kept the noise outside the snack shop down.

Before she knew it, there was a polite boy in glasses hanging around, and then a crude little girl in Chinese clothes. Someone was always crashing through the roof, and things got livelier than ever. The huge dog was a pain in the ass, but well, with green alien gardeners moving in across the way, times were changing, and she decided to keep up rather than be left out.

He came downstairs one night, after the girl was properly asleep and after the drunks had cleared out. She made him take off the kimono so he wouldn't get dog slobber on her clean floor, but then she passed him a plate of leftover grilled eel.

“Hey, pour me some sake, huh, granny? Life's hard.”

“If you've got the money for sake, you've got enough to pay your rent.”

He picked at the eel for a while before he finally came up with what was on his mind.

“I don't know what's going on,” he complained. “For a long time, it's just me and everything's quiet and fine. I liked it, no one gave me any shit except for you.”

She might have taken exception to that, but he continued, chewing noisily on the eel.

“Now I've got three dependents, only one of which is reliably house-trained, ninjas coming through the roof, cops banging on my door, and old friends coming through who think I owe them something. It's stupid and I don't know what the hell is going on half the time.”

_That's life,_ she could have said. _Things come in cycles, and some things never stop at all. They doesn't stop even when you think it should, and you can only stay out of it for so long if you've got a pulse and are a half-way decent human being._

Instead she took another puff of the cigarette and shrugged. He would figure that out for himself or maybe he wouldn't.


End file.
